Divorce because I betrayed her trust - I regret it

[DaB35]

This is the letter I want to write her

**

I know you have heard me say sorry many times already, and I know that we are both so very sad that things have gone the way they have. I’m not intending to control or force you to do anything by writing this letter. I just want to say a few more things that I hope will help you heal a bit more.

When we got married in 2016 you believed I would make you feel cherished and loved for the rest of your life, and that you’d feel safe with me. However there have been times where I have made you feel neglected, and now - worse than that - rejected and betrayed. To discover that the man you had entrusted your life with had such a horrible part to him that he was too afraid to disclose it to anyone – not even you, the closest person he had – must have caused you so much distress.

I am horrified to see before me the depth of pain I have created. You have given so much in the 8 years we have been together, yet I do see how devastated you are now, and I cannot believe that I did what I did.

Whilst you gave yourself to me, and I totally loved being with you, in the background I was feeding an addiction that was debilitating and degrading because I was using it as escapism from other issues of mine instead of actually dealing with those issues in a mature way with your support. I know that your discovery of what I did was shocking and utterly devastating, since it was something that I had not addressed and instead brought into the relationship without you knowing. I understand how you would have felt so deceived by this.

As a result of inflicting such a trauma on you, I do not blame you for losing trust in me, and that your love for me has been affected so terribly. Words will never fully express the complete and abject remorse that I have for what I did, and how I was too weak-willed, ashamed, and scared to ask for any form of help before it was too late. Your husband became a threat to your self-worth and I am mortified to have done this.

I know that for all the times you have shared your thoughts with me – both good and bad – I did not reciprocate equally. You have not received the same openness from me that I got from you, and I was a fool to be so immature and closed off, to merely accept that I had created these emotional barriers and not seek to actively get rid of them so I could benefit from your loving support even more. When I felt I was in trouble I should have reached out to you, my wife, for guidance. I am sorry I did not do this. Please understand that, for all time, I want to be someone you feel you can speak to, as I would want to speak to you. Whenever you need someone to listen to your concerns or share any anxieties, I will be here.

In the last 8 years you have had such a life-affirming impact on me in so many ways, yet I am so remorseful for the way you have been treated. The love I have for you was something I felt very strongly; I was delighted to feel something that profoundly as I thought it would never come. But I did not have the decency to always let you know, nor did I have the strength to fight my underlying problems before they ended up contributing to your feeling completely drained emotionally and physically.

I think back over our life together often, and am amazed at just how much we’ve done in such a short space of time.

For years I accepted what I feel for you as simply a part of me, flowing through me. In addition, the love and affection I have received from you is something so gorgeous and uniquely precious.

As I said at the start of this letter, I am not trying to force you to do anything. I just wanted to offer you some empathy so you know how much regret I have for what I have done.

All I can say now is that you are still one of the most important people in my life. I will always care for you at a depth that is ‘without fathom’. [note 1]

“And in the hush, remember us.” [note 2]

You are - and will forever be - my soft. [note 3]

*****

NOTES
1. This is an in-joke - It's from the film Megamind which we saw on our first date and we always laugh about that line. A character cannot say the word unfathomable, so gives up and says "without fathom"

2. This is a line from a song by one of our favourite artists, Aqualung.

3. We used to call each other 'soft' - it was our pet name for each other.